نشریه رهیافت
پیاپی 50 (بهار 1391)

Science and technology parks are an element of establishing knowledge based organizations. S&T parks and incubators are the fundamentals of knowledge based economy in countries. S&T parks are based on an assumption that “technological innovation” is derived from scientific studies; and the S&T parks are a facilitator for transformation of theoretical studies into production and execution. This article focuses on the ways that the S&T park of Middle East Technical University of Turkey establishes to increase the success likelihood of knowledge based firms located on this park. The ways are categorized into two groups: The first part is the measures that are done for selection of strong firms and elimination of poor ideas before acceptancing the firms. These measures include: competitions for selection of best ideas” and “developing regulations and predicting some filters for entrance of the firms to the S&T Park. The second part is the measures that are done for support of potent ideas and firms. These measures include: “establishment of incubator”، “incentives and legal protections”، “use of facilities of Enterprise Europe Network” and “use of facilities of European Business Angels Network”.

The culture of each society has significant effects on acquired traits of individuals and creating the limitations and opportunities for organizations greatly influence the entrepreneurial process and thus the economic growth. For example، the studies show that differences in growth are partly due to differences in regional innovativeness، which can be explained by differences in entrepreneurial culture. Therefore، culture affects growth through the intermediating mechanism of innovativeness. Other studies in the field of the relationship between culture and the rate of business ownership، across 21 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)، and the survey of the effect of cultural orientation on the level of entrepreneurship through the measurement of cultural dimensions، have resulted in a new point of view to entrepreneurial culture in the world. Accordingly، after identifying entrepreneurial characteristics، providing strategies for promoting the culture is very important as a tool of economic development. This article presents the most important strategies for the development of entrepreneurial culture، following a review on the literature of entrepreneurship and the importance of culture and its dimensions.

Almost all of popular frameworks of science and technology policy making have limited perspective، and consider just the economic growth in selecting goals، implementing tools and evaluating the impacts. Neglecting the social effects of STI policies is while social problems such as inequality are of the most important challenges of developing countries and economic growth will not solve all the social problems. This paper، at first، explains the social impacts of STI policies and the proposed solutions to alleviate them. Then، «learning and innovation capability building» has selected among the proposed solution and its convergence with both innovation progress and social justice has been explained. An index has been proposed to measure learning- innovation capability of the countries، calculating it shows the direct convergence of learning and innovation capability building with social justice.

Science and technology (S&T) collaborative networks have been considered as effective policy tools to manage the technology and innovation development in recent few decades. Although there are several opinions about the different stages of formation and evolution of a S&T collaborative network، but the literature still lacks a comprehensive theory. The present research develops a model for the formation and evolution of S&T networks – “the Life Cycle of S&T Collaborative Networks” - utilizing the concept of “social technology” and adopting the “technology life cycle” model. The proposed model is simple، easy-to-understand and supported by several preceding theories and models. The last characteristic is what the almost all pervious classifications regarding S&T networks evolution - contributed by other researchers- lack it. In order to examine the proposed model in the real world، seven S&T networks founded in I. R. of Iran from 1995 to 2005 are investigated. Conducting a qualitative inquiry and using multiple-case study method، researcher has collected related data adequately from semi-structured interviews with key informants، observation، and archived documents. The study shows that the model fits well with the case networks and could satisfyingly justify their real status.

Among the various categories that had been done on different kinds of science and technology policies، the all have in common the fact that a kind of policies improve infrastructure and the general condition of science and targeting on specific topics or projects was not made. Based on that issue، this paper presents a new classification that named such kind of policies as “generic”. In contrast، suggests that every field of science and technology such as nanotechnology or biotechnology needs a “specific” policy that proposes a different program for the whole area and its branches. The article is continued by presenting the importance of the two categories of generic and specific policies and how to extract then and it is shown that the above classification provides a clear understanding for policy makers in the field of science and technology.

This paper attempts to overview and analyze the models presented in literature for developing a technology roadmap in different contexts، namely international، national، industrial، and corporation contexts. Today technology plays an important role in corporation competitiveness، so it should be managed in a strategic way. One of the important goals in strategic management of technology at corporate level is applying technologies in such a way that value creation in the corporation is optimized. Therefore، technology managers need a tool to ensure value creation. Technology roadmap is a vital tool for protecting strategic planning business، product، and technology which provides essential processes، information and instrument to produce them. Many frameworks and models have been presented for developing technology roadmap. But characteristics and assumptions of those models largely restrict their applications to different circumstances. In this paper nature and structure of different frameworks and models are assessed and compared on the basis of theoretical approach. After comparing those models regarding three different aspects (e. g. content، process، and context)، all of their weaknesses and strengths will be discussed. The output of this assessment and investigation is a classification of models which helps corporations in selecting the best model of developing technology roadmap based on their goals and circumstances.

There are rankings of universities and centers of higher education in order to demonstrate their competitive position in all areas or on specific issues. The first international ranking of universities was published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University to compare the countrys'' universities with other universities in the world in 2003. Given the enthusiastic reception of the results of this ranking، in later years different organizations with different objectives released classified lists of universities and centers of higher education. In addition to rankings of universities to help students in selecting an appropriate training center، there are many advantages for stakeholders outside the university such as facilitating the process of workforce employed by the organizations. University rankings also increase the quality of higher education and research، product improvement، collecting and processing information in the higher education system. International studies show that ranking systems of universities in terms of focus، data collection methods، scope and presentation of the results differ from each other. This paper aims to present a valid methodology grading systems and their comparison with the use of the criteria listed.